


A Woman of Experience

by matrixrefugee



Category: Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 08:50:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17936648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matrixrefugee/pseuds/matrixrefugee
Summary: Juno finds Titus fascinating. The feeling isn't quite mutual but can change...





	A Woman of Experience

**Author's Note:**

> Written for DreamWidth's "fic_promptly"'s [Any, any, A Man Is Not a Virgin](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/114366.html?thread=5427390&format=light#cmt5427390) Juno/Titus, set during "Titus Alone"

Juno found her young tenant fascinating: his tales of the castle where he had dwelt, were like something out of a novel or a movie, only better since they were, for all purposes and intents, true stories. The young man had no reason to deceive her.

But she found it odd that the youth seemed more fascinated by the house and the things within it -- things unlike what he knew from his domain -- than in the mistress of the place. Something that had never happened to her before: usually the men who bided time with her under this roof eventually sought her hand or a place on her pillow. But the youth had made no advances on her.

She decided to open that door a crack, to give him a chance to look in if he wished, and open it to come inside in his own time.

"Have you ever had a lover?" she asked him, one warm night, as they sat on the terrace behind the house, sipping wine from crystalline flutes shaped like morning glory flowers. She in a gown that showed off the bosom that he had practically landed on, when he'd fallen through the skylight at Lady Crabcalf's party; he in that rusty black suit which made him look like an actor wandered from his troupe.

He blinked at her with his smoke-violet eyes. "There was a wild girl from the woods that surrounded the castle, a girl who danced like a leaf on the breeze. She let me embrace her once, then fled from my arms to be kissed by a bolt of lightning," he says. "There was love and there was death."

"Was there anyone else?" she asked, pressing him.

He shook his head like a solemn old man, like a lonely child. "No, there has not been another."

Juno shifted toward him, giving him the thought of a she-cat sidling beside a tom in some dusty courtyard of the castle. He leaned away from her like a tree branch in a breeze. "You were lord of the manor," she said. "Didn't you take another lover on the sly? Wasn't there some maidservant whom you summoned to warm your bed?"

"There was not. There were few young women in the castle, only women of middle-age and elder than that," he said "Except for my sister Fuschia, but such things are forbidden," he added, his gaze twisting with aversion. "Is that how it is done here? Do brothers and sisters consort in such a way?"

Juno now leaned away. "No, nothing like that," she said, quickly. "Were you always so sequestered?"

"Alas, yes," he admitted, dropping his gaze in melancholy.

She laid her hand on his, offering comfort. "You don't need to feel ashamed. I can show you the way if you want."

His hand did not move. "But were you not the lover of Muzzlehatch?"

She wagged her head. "Yes, a long time ago. We loved each other too fiercely for it to last. He would have made me his lioness, but I wouldn't let him cage my heart."

His hand turned over to clasp hers. "I would not cage your heart: I lived in a prison of laws and traditions for too long; I would do nothing to hold you down."

He leaned in as if he would kiss her, and she guided him to her lips, ready to lead him over the threshold which fate and circumstance had once closed to him...


End file.
